On 2007-02-12, Roger wrote:
Its just plain good sense not to use cellphones in an aircraft. Has
anyone noticed how a NEXTEL phone will tear up speaker phones and
computer monitors? Its the pulsing of the time division multiplex (TDMA)

Nope. I have both right here and with no problem.

GSM phones are particularly bad about intefering with things. If I leave
mine by the gearstick of my car (just below the radio), I can hear
every time it hands off between cell towers on the car's radio. I can
also recognise the inteference it makes as a call comes in - so I know
before it rings with a call or beeps with a text message that it's going
to do so because the sound of the inteference is so distinct. It will
intefere with cheap CRT monitors (but not well made more expensive
ones).

I also have a first hand experience of a GSM phone ringing just as we
were intercepting the localiser on a dark, rainy night with 600 foot
ceilings. I was with a friend (who happened to be doing his first for
real ILS). He had forgotten to switch his phone off, and his wife called
just as we were intercepting the localiser. The calm voice of the
tower controller (and everything else) was drowned out by a noise that
went "BIP B B BIP B B BIP B B BIP B B BIP BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR". Anyone
with a GSM phone probably recognises that noise if they've ever left
their phone near a radio! Needless to say, it completely obliterated any
radio communications from the tower, and I had to take over flying the
approach while my friend dug into his most inaccessable pocket to find
the offending phone and turn it off.

So far as I can tell it didn't affect the loc or glideslope indications
at all, but it certainly made the com radios completely unusable.

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